It can be hard to get a movie off the ground in Hollywood. Sometimes it can feel amazing when a project finally sees the light of day. On the other hand, there are too many stories of ideas and concepts that just fell short of materializing. But what happened to The Empty Man…I would call it cruel. To not let the people be aware of a movie’s existence is not only preventing potential fans from seeing it, but it is also disrespecting the people who put hard work into creating a story they were passionate about. But in order to understand the situation, one must go back to the beginning.

This movie comes from a man named David Prior. For a while, his career was based on making documentaries and special features of various different films, including several David Fincher movies. It’s through this that he would pick up on some film-making techniques that would influence his independent short film AM1200 and his full length feature debut. The feature movie is loosely based on a comic of the same name, but David Prior was less interested in the actual story beats of the comic and more into the themes of what it presented. He then started to work on the film with 20th Century Fox, with one executive who was fully supportive, even if others were less confident. And sometimes, just knowing a guy and having him in your corner can be the key to get a movie off the ground. But during production, Disney officially purchased 20th Century Fox Studios. The executives originally attached to Prior’s film were then replaced with new ones. They forced him to present a 90 minute version of the film, which Prior eventually gave them. But they were unsatisfied with even this version of the movie. Unsure of how to handle a movie like this or how to market it, they decided to release the director’s preferred version in theaters…for one week maybe two at the longest, in massively empty theaters during the height of the pandemic. A trailer released only a week in advance that didn’t properly represented the story at all.

You might be wondering why you should care for a movie with a production history like this. If the studio buried the movie in such a fashion, doesn’t that mean it isn’t any good? My friends, that is far from the truth. It is hard to understand it, sure, and it doesn’t play out in any predictable way. But those alleged weaknesses are in reality the movie’s strengths. The reasons why it is such a unique experience. The Empty Man makes several bold story-telling choices that certainly run the risk of alienating the audience. For example, we have a cold open that focuses on a group of young adults travelling to some mountains in Asia. This cold open goes on for about 20 minutes before we get the title of the movie and then switch our focus to a completely unconnected character in another part of the world. There are several choices like this that you wouldn’t expect from most Horror movies. But it all plays into the ideas you can discover within it’s story.

The overall story, without giving too much away, is this. A former police detective named James Lasombra is still grieving over the loss of his family. However, he finds himself helping a friend of his when her daughter suddenly goes missing, the only clue being a message written in blood – “The Empty Man made me do it.” We then follow James as the movie begins like a noir story. Investigating the girl’s friends, what she had been doing in the days leading up to her disappearance. We then run into a mysterious group of people with odd beliefs that seem to be hiding more than what they reveal. But as James investigates further and learns more about them, he finds himself unprepared for the truths he has to confront.

With a running time of nearly two hours and twenty minutes, this is definitely a slow burn. But that is the nature of an investigation story such as this. We are in the dark just like the main character, and every new reveal pulls you in closer. It makes you want to learn more about what is going on and try to make sense of the slowly growing madness. What begins as a seemingly modern crime noir with a possible supernatural twist…turns into something larger. The Empty Man is a movie that challenges the viewers with questions regarding faith, the meaning of existence, and your perception of reality. And the unconventional story-telling choices it makes are designed to make you engaged and truly feel the full emotional weight and disturbance the movie wants you to feel.

This is, unfortunately, a modern day example of what happens to a movie when a studio can’t understand it. When they can’t find an easily identifiable way to market and make a profit off the movie. While 20th Century Fox at the time did give as much support as they could, it was an easy target following Disney’s takeover for getting buried and forgotten. If you are a fan of Horror movies, especially quiet and slow moving ones, this movie is a must see. If you are just someone who wants to see something different in Hollywood, something beyond the standard blockbuster or a major movie covered in the easily identifiable tropes, this movie is a must see. This movie needs an audience, and if the audience is big enough, then the movie will get what it deserves which is an official Blu Ray release. It’s one thing for a movie to never make it off the ground. But to have it made simply to have a release designed to bury the film into obscurity…that’s cruel and disrespectful to the people who worked on it. Witness the movie and let yourself get lost in the world of The Empty Man.